You will be upgraded!

Whether you like it or not.

Obviously Microsoft is no longer intending to support Windows 8 since it has gone and downloaded 8.1 even though I repeatedly told it not to. Once it had, I repeatedly told it not to install, until today, when postponing installation longer than 4 hours was not permitted. So far it has not demonstrated the same screw-up that it did with my laptop (disabling the display when idle and not being able to re-enable without hard reset) but it did already confuse me with it's stupid audio problem: at first sound wasn't working, then it kind of was, but apparently now 5.1 surround sound means "front, centre and side" as opposed to "front, centre and rear".

So now I'm running a 7.1 surround setup without side speakers, because apparently that's how things work now...

Tech industry needs to die...

And why am I still seeing Asian dating ads on my front page?

Horror by the wayside

So I missed Halloween. Or didn't miss it as the case may be. Depends on context I suppose. Nothin' doin'. Still around, site wasn't blocked in retaliation for my snipe at the government, but since almost no one read my post, I guess they didn't care. Or they didn't care anyway. Or they didn't see it.

Damn I hate thinking, why can't some of you do more thinking so I don't have to?

Anyway, no plans made, for anyone who cares. Plenty of free time so perhaps I might actually do that Mass Effect series thingy. If so I can't guarantee that I'll get around to replaying the games prior to doing a recap/review.

Think more, have fun and stop killing each other. Seriously, you need to be better human beings, or the species is doomed.

Fascism, Australia welcomes you

So I've heard about something that passed with way less fanfare than should have accompanied a change of this magnitude.

The National Security Amendments Bill (No. 1)  is now a thing here in Oz permitting practically unrestricted monitoring of Australian internet activity by ASIO & ASIS (hi guys).

Don't you just love a government that decides that "these are the rights you are entitled to as a citizen of this nation unless we determine otherwise on a whim" and claims it's in the name of "national security".

Uh... are we under threat? I'm pretty sure we're more of a threat to ourselves than from faceless foreign stereotypes, we voted for this stupid government after all (well, I didn't but a vast majority of shiftless morons in this country did). If our neighbours are pissed at us, maybe stop being a dick? Or is that what scares you? Corruption from within!

Seems kind of plausible, but not in the way that you think.

If I had more inclination and know-how I'd throw some stupid image meme thing together with a picture of a cruise ship and the caption "STOP THE BOAT PEOPLE!" because that's what retards need to convince them to maybe try thinking at least a little.

Don't worry, the world won't end. It will take more than that. But don't let other people take credit for it because they were "watching out for us".

"Game" Theory

First off, yes I'm still here for those of you who read this (hi Mum).

Second, why am I seeing Asian dating ads on my page?

Third, I'll preface this brief entry with the announcement that I am clearly insane, because I still play Marvel Heroes.

But this has led me to have an interesting thought about the nonsense of random drops and clickfests. Go back far enough and a "game" was not much more than a mildly amusing teaching tool. Well to some it was serious business and still is in some cases, but they were designed to teach a skill outside of the application of that skill. Like chess, it was designed to teach battle tactics, without the noise and bloodshed and pressure of a real battle situation.

There, victory could be earned. By out-thinking your opponent, or even just knowing them well enough to gauge their tactics, you could win. And that's about it. Of course these days there are tournaments with prizes and such, way back when it was created, maybe a display of skill meant a promotion, so there probably was a tangible reward for playing.

Now take the ARPG. For the most part, "rewards" are simply things that you can use in the game that enable you to keep playing, making your character more powerful or durable so that you can be better at the game and get more stuff. Except usually all that stuff is randomly assigned. Most frequently it's just equipment that has a random chance of dropping and has a bunch of randomly rolled affixes on it. And all it does is let you keep playing the game.

OK, fine, it's somewhat endless and mindless so you can use it as entertainment... which means it's not really rewarding you, as it is enticing you to keep playing, for whatever reason (money usually). This is nothing new or controversial, I'm hardly the first to say it. But if it isn't really rewarding play, then it's not really great entertainment. If it's not trying to teach a skill, it's not really a game.

If anything, you could suggest that because all things will eventually drop, that it rewards and/or teaches patience. I don't think something that teaches patience should be so fast-paced. I don't think that something trying to teach patience should induce RSI or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

I get that the frustration it causes can be seen as an attempt to encourage patience. I don't think that you should get paid for it.


So yes, I'm still embittered and full of hate, but maybe I'll be trying to share more of it with you in the near future, aren't you excited? I had an idea a while back to do a more proper review of Mass Effect 3 and couple it with a sort of retrospective of the series, and the original idea was to do this around the first anniversary of its release. Then at the first anniversary of my first review. Then at the second anniversary of its release.

Well it's coming up on the second anniversary of my original review, so look forward to that being postponed as well.

For those who care

Our thoughts do not make the universe, life is not what you make of it and we never had a choice.

New crap, same as the old crap

So I got a new computer today, a proper one, not the laptop I've been uncomfortably adapting to over the last few months. So far, it's been more trouble than it's worth. Damn thing arrived in the morning, all built and everything, and wouldn't accept the key for Windows (8 that is, they'll be supporting it for longer and 8.1 sucks, and it seems an OEM copy will actually let you use Microsoft's anti-virus)...

So I carried it back to the builders (actually carried, damn I'm out of shape) over the course of the morning and into early afternoon only to find that they didn't know why it wasn't accepting the key, but reinstalling Windows seemed to work...

So, carry it back home (took a cab for the last leg, lugging this thing around was really tiring) and begin the rounds of Windows updates, interrupted by the occasional bout of nonsense when trying to "trust this PC" and now comes the installing of all the programs I was used to using on the old machine...

Makes me start to hate computers and the whole damn tech industry.

Late hate for 8

I posted a while back about my purchase of a laptop with Windows 8 and my issues trying to get 8.1. Well, as near as I can tell, the issue blocking acquisition of 8.1 was a free trial of McAfee anti-virus; after the trial had expired I removed it and suddenly no issues with getting 8.1. However, it wasn't exactly a step up. I needed 8.1 because plain 8 wouldn't support Microsoft Security Essentials (which doesn't really exist anymore, it's just lumped into Windows Defender, which now has anti-virus capabilities) and I don't want to have to pay extra for protection from the dangers of the internet when it's in MS' best interest to keep it free from corruption. Either that, or go back to AVG free which has been annoying me for a while.

Anyway, this resulted with me now actually having 8.1 and I've got to say, 8 was better. There are so many little things wrong with 8.1 that it's not funny, and there's nothing that I would call an improvement since not making full Defender protection available in plain 8 is just really mercenary. But while the desktop now has a "Start" button, all it does it take you to the Start page, which you could already do in 8, you could always get back there and now we have something that quite specifically doesn't let us access system tools and applications with any ease.

Most strange is the fact that my laptop cannot now be put into sleep mode. Do that, and you'll never wake it without a hard shutdown and restart. Same goes for any situation requiring "wake up", such as the display being switched off to save energy. And I've just today discovered that some silly little update I did yesterday that mentioned nothing to do with display or graphics reverted my settings from "never switch off the display", because that's what it just did.

I'd say steal it, but it isn't even worth the effort. Either stick with 7 or 8, but give 8.1 a pass, Microsoft needs to learn that they aren't the slightest bit in touch with the consumer. All this crap just because some upper management idiot realised that they were losing to Apple in the tablet market; screwing over the PC market hardly seems like a sound business decision.

Here I am

And not much else. I don't take my lack of an enthusiastic audience personally, I've learned that having people's attention has generally ended up being unpleasant. But since I'm certain my mother is reading this - yes, I am still breathing.

And not much else.

Windows Hate

So I found myself realising that my current computer is definitely dying and I'd rather prolong it's suffering by not using it for gaming anymore. Having not so much money available, I went affordable and grabbed a laptop - which came with Windows 8 installed. I thought: "Not too much of a problem, apparently this 8.1 thing is supposed to be a marked improvement for non-tablet users, and they'll be supporting it for much longer". Note that this is the same rationale I used when I got Windows Vista, self-delusion basically.

Got it home, fiddled a bit, looked around for 8.1, spent the afternoon waiting for it to download, then hooray, install time. Except it won't let me. It seems others have had this issue, and still others refuse to make/use a Microsoft account and provide contact information (one person was even paranoid enough to think they were giving this info to the NSA, which is silly because it's more profitable to sell it to direct marketers, and they're far less discreet with it). But not I, you see. I got to the step that says "Help us protect your account" - which is where they ask for further contact details - and while there is a "skip this step for now" button that just reloads the same screen, it won't actually let me provide further information. I enter an alternate email and it says it will send a code to it in the next step - a step I can't get to because the "Next" button just reloads the same screen. Try a phone number for text (or call), same thing.

This is a new level of incompetence here. They go to all the effort of making the damn thing only to screw up the part where people get to use it.

Howl stretching time

So the people at Overkill decided to extend the Halloween event for PAYDAY 2 for a few more days... I'm noticing a pattern, let's call it the "holiday season" (because it's already called that anyway). The weird thing here is that it's an extension after the holiday in question (though it's not so holy). All that build-up to Halloween and all its associated nonsense fueled by capitalism. Although it might have been slightly overshadowed by the fact that preparations were also underway for Christmas, as of a couple of weeks ago I've already seen the "photo with Santa" stations in shopping malls. Anyway, the point being that prolonging the season after the holiday (whatever, it's the word people use) is what is striking me as odd. Since it's usually all prelude then out with a bang and then roll over and fall asleep. Christmas being the noteworthy comparison here where the only extension of the holiday is the post-Christmas sales. Then it's a week long plateau before the great piss-up known as New Year's Eve. You don't really get extensions of those holidays.

And why the hell was I seeing children doing trick-or-treat? This is Australia, we don't do that sort of thing here. I wouldn't be surprised if it were being used as a way to teach children the importance of disappointment. That I would approve of.